


To Boldly Write

by crowdedangels



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Episode: Progeny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 01:37:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10374972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowdedangels/pseuds/crowdedangels
Summary: A wine-buzzed defiance coursed through her as she tried to find the opening line to her out-of-this-world memoirs. She even typed out 'Once upon a time' at one point.





	

**Author's Note:**

> AU about Elizabeth writing her book. AUthor, if you will. 
> 
> Sorry.

It took a lot for her to get here. After she lost Atlantis, she struggled with her place in a too-loud world. Too many people, too many voices, too many opinions on what she should do, where she should go. She shut down, shut people out, spent a year pretty much in her tiny apartment that she rented on the outskirts in Springs; Local enough just in case she got the call that they had Atlantis back.

That call never came.

She joked once to Carson that she would write a book and he had scoffed that The Powers That Be would never let her touch pen to paper. That night, after a meal with the Doc, Rodney and John that was painful in its new nostalgia, she started. A wine-buzzed defiance coursing through her as she tried to find the opening line to her out-of-this-world memoirs. She typed out 'Once upon a time' at one point.

She just wanted to write it down, confirm to herself that it was all real, it all happened, before the passage of time made the doubt set in.

_Was it real? Was it all just an elaborate daydream? Was she still locked in her mind, locked in that facility?_

She found she enjoyed the writing process. Her laptop, a glass of red wine, her father's Miles Davis on the record player. Nights spent by candlelight, laughing at the antics – and they really were _antics_ sometimes – her people got up to, crying for the people they lost.

She started to research – reading popular autobiographies of people she respected, making notes on how they told their stories. She took to google and stumbled upon something that ignited the fire of 'what if' within her, made her see her stories in a new light.

_'Top Tips for Writing Science Fiction'._

A few tweaks here and there – avoiding and removing certain aspects of the Stargate and the Wraith and the Ancients. A notebook filled with plots, timelines, structures. John Sheppard became Joshua Spaulding, Elizabeth Weir became Emily Warke. She had a book.

It took a few weeks to pass through the Air Force vetting system; Some rewrites, some heated pleasantries (“Whilst I thank you for your interesting opinion with regards to page thirty nine...”) and she was given the okay to send to the publishers.

Two years later, nineteen rejections, and she was finally able to hold her book in her hand. She smiled, laying her hand across it's cover, a feeling flooding her she hadn't had since Atlantis.

It was received well, but it wasn't until the second in the series that it took off. She was lauded for her imagination, the world-building and the team relationships. The internet exploded with fanart, fanfiction, all kinds of appreciation.

The 'Sparky' was an interesting development. She hadn't knowingly written anything between Spaulding and Warke, she had just tried to emulate the same relationship – _friendship –_ that she had shared with John. Sure, sometimes, they could talk a bit...flirty. But it was harmless. Just talk.

Her publishers were foaming at the bit to capitilise on her work and sent her on a thirty-date, four month tour, visiting book stores and comicons around the country, meeting the fans and signing books. She agreed, liking the thought of seeing the country, being able to talk about her books, her life before.

It wasn't quite as romantic as she had initially thought it would be; it was airports and ubers and store-bought sandwiches at 3am. It was hotel beds with too much noise outside, no familiar faces.

But it was also fans (that was a new concept!) and excited faces and questions about her characters, her world. Spaulding and Warke's 'faces' on tee shirts, tote bags, tattoos. A question always in the back of her mind if the flirting was something more. Was she writing it like that? Questions if they were going to get together in the next book.

She was at the last of her tour – deep Texas, miles away from anyone and anywhere she knew, her own bed just one flight away, another book thrust under nose. “Thanks for coming,” she grabbed her pen, not looking up, “Who do I make it out to?”

“John. Or should I say Joshua?”


End file.
